My conundrum for the ages

I haven’t had a lot to say of late. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and there haven’t been a lot of fully-formed views breaking through the clouds just yet. So I have kept my pondering to myself.

Perhaps the blogosphere would be better off if I continued to keep my thinking to myself, full-formed or otherwise, but I figure you can tune out anytime you want and write here only what I feel driven to record.

It is with that in mind that I share today the impetus for my introspection. If it is in some way helpful to any of you, then know I am delighted to be of help. If not, by all means, feel free to change the channel.

2008 was a tough year, what with the weddings of two beautiful daughters, the global economy, my precious son’s struggles, losing about half my net worth, offending my eldest daughter, business re-organizations, and so, so much uncertainty.

But it was nothing in comparison to 2009!

I find myself right in the midst of what you may immediately dismiss as a mid-life crisis. Well, dismiss it as you may – if you are younger, you have it yet to face. And if you have already faced it, just keep that smug smile of knowing off your face while you read.

Let me set the stage.

I’m 52. I have served my country, my God, my church, and my community. I’ve raised my children, and they are who they are, I’m proud of them and love it when we spend time together (and miss them when we don't.)

I’ve worked for four Fortune 50 companies in a variety of positions high and low. I've also been in a few smaller firms. I’ve been blue-collar and white-collar. I’ve spent time as a leader, The leader, a manager, an analyst, paralegal, a salesman, a consultant, even a gas pump jockey, a carpenter and a forklift driver. I’m even an expert at a couple of things (mostly obscure and unimpressive.)

Come to think of it, there aren't many titles I haven’t held in one company or another (CIO comes to mind, along with CFO – titles I am not only unqualified for, but – really, never wanted to wear.) I’ve been on the boards of three companies, and five non-profits. I've lived in 34 addresses and "owned" the mortgages on three (each a bit better than the last.)

In financial terms I am not what you’d call wealthy, but I’m still well spoiled (even at half my 2007 worth!)

And yet there persists a sense that I haven’t done anything! I think it is because, despite leaving some of my DNA around in four clever and good looking children and eight gorgeous grandchildren, I haven’t BUILT anything enduring.

Nothing but those pieces of my DNA will last beyond the day my remains are dropped into a grave (or more likely, burned to ash and scattered in the surf at one of the Hawaiian Islands… and if so, please, make it Kona!)

The biologists out there are right now attributing that to the drive we all have to be immortal and to leave something of ourselves in the world. Well, I have given that lots of consideration and find that simple explanation is terribly incomplete.

True, I may yearn to write a Homeric tale for the ages, or leave a building on the campus of the University of Maryland with my family name etched in granite. But honestly, none of that lasts all that much longer than my remains. Much as we may all be endowed with some of the motive of Achilles, desiring to be remembered through all the ages, my unrest is more than simply hoping I’ll be remembered.

I’d rather build something lasting and be forgotten than do something famous but inconsequential and be a household name for a millennium or two.

I’d love to build a small but worthwhile endeavor that I could hand off to one of more of my children or grandchildren with a similar vision and watch from the Eternities as they make it something a little bigger and better and pass it on to one of theirs.

That is what has occupied my mind of late. I don’t seek to save the world, stop world hunger, cure cancer, or conquer the world and be the next Caesar. (I would, however, like to help with some of those things.)

I just want to build and leave something that can be built upon by some of mine.

Now if I can just find THAT thing, I’ll be just fine. But I have to hurry, because I realistically have anywhere from one more day to thirty-five or so more years to get something done!

Give Me Hector

Give me Trojan Hector over the Argive Achilles
any day, I muse, unconsciously out loud.
She chuckles and responds, You are a strange man
preferring one work of fiction above another.

Oh my daughter, on the momentous day brave Hector
met mighty Achilles on the Plains of Troy,
these ancient mortal gods stood not merely as warriors,
but as the foundation of our modern world.

Still strange, quite peculiar! she announces with finality.
But why not Achilles, the famed and mighty victor?
Hector, the obvious lesser of the two in single combat
was felled by mighty Achilles and then debased.

Mystically protected from death by his immortal Mother,
from all but the missile launched ingloriously
by a cowardly, fortunate and unwitting foe, I argue.
Twice armored Achilles was simply better shielded.

As they traded powerful blows, Hector held fast despite
divining his death and dividing his strength.
Bringing supreme might to bear against the rising fear,
he conquered self, though before Achilles he fell.

Mighty Achilles, arrogant, narcissistic son of gods,
arrayed in a near perfect Olympian shield to
remedy any breach of helmet, breastplate or greaves,
faced Hector, and he clad only in his Ilium bronze.

Blind to the bolt that pierced his well-known tendon,
Achilles never bred any courage of mortal fear.
So superior on the field of battle, still Achilles lacked
the virtue of the vanquished Ilium commander.

Keep the beauty of Achilles, the armor fashioned by gods
from favor and the ambition for everlasting legend.
Give me the valiant essence of Hector for any endeavor
requiring a soul most daring, dutiful, and true.